The Kill Room (Lincoln Rhyme 10)

Shit.

"Because I was limping?"

"Maybe, I don't know. Anyway, s'what he said. Listen, a fat old fart like me, you can get away with some bad days, hobbling around. But you're a kid, Amelia. And skinny. He checked your reports and the ten-seventeens. Saw you volunteered for a lot of tactical work, first through the door on the lead teams sometimes. He just asked if you'd had any problems in the field or if anybody'd said they weren't comfortable with you on take-downs or rescues. I told him no, absolutely not. You were prime."

"Thanks, Lon," she whispered. "Is he thinking of ordering a physical?"

"The subject didn't come up. But that doesn't mean no."

To become an NYPD officer an applicant has to take a medical exam but once on the force--unlike firefighters or emergency medical techs--he or she never has to again, unless a supervisor orders one in specific cases or the officers want to earn promotion credit. Aside from that first checkup, years ago, Sachs had never had a department physical. The only record of her arthritis was on file with her private orthopedists. Myers wouldn't have access to that but if he ordered a physical, the extent of her condition would be revealed.

And that would be a disaster.

"Thanks, Lon."

They disconnected and she stood motionless for a moment, reflecting: Why was it that only part of this case seemed to involve worrying about the perps? Just as critical, you had to guard against your allies too, it seemed.

Sachs checked her weapon once more and walked toward the door, defiantly refusing to give in to the nearly overwhelming urge to limp.

CHAPTER 28

AMELIA SACHS HAD A 3G MOBILE PHONE, Jacob Swann had discovered.

And this was good news. Cracking the encryption and listening to her conversations were harder than with phones running GPRS--general packet radio service, or 2G--but, at least, it was feasible because 3G featured good old-fashioned A5/1 voice encryption.

Not that his tech department was allowed to do such a thing, of course.

Yet there must have been a screwup somewhere, because just ten minutes after discussing the matter casually--and, of course, purely theoretically--with the director of Technical Services and Support, Swann found himself enraptured by Sachs's low, and rather sexy, voice, coming to him over the airwaves.

He already had a lot of interesting facts. Some specific to the Moreno investigation. Some more general, though equally helpful: for instance, that this Detective Amelia Sachs had some physical problems. He'd filed that away for future reference.

He'd also learned some troubling information: that the other investigator on the case, Lincoln Rhyme, was in the Bahamas. Now, this was potentially a real problem. Upon learning it, Swann had immediately called contacts down there--a few of the Sands and Kalik drinkers on the dock--and made arrangements.

But he couldn't concentrate on that at the moment. He was occupied. Crouching in an unpleasantly aromatic alleyway, picking the lock of the service door to a Starbucks wannabe. A place called Java Hut. He was wearing thin latex gloves--flesh-colored so that at fast glance his hands would appear unclad.

The morning was warm and the gloves and concealing windbreaker made him warmer yet. He was sweating. Not as bad as with Annette in the Bahamas. But still...

And that god-awful stench. New York City alleys. Couldn't somebody blast them with bleach from time to time?

Finally the lock clicked. Swann cracked the door a bit and looked inside. From here he could see an office, which was empty, a kitchen in which a skinny Latino labored away with dishes and, beyond that, part of the restaurant itself. The place wasn't very crowded and he guessed that since this was a tourist area--what was left of Little Italy--most of the business would be on weekends.

He now slipped inside, eased the door mostly closed and stepped into the office, pulling aside his jacket and making sure his knife was easily accessible.

Ah, there was the computer monitor, showing what the security camera was seeing on the restaurant floor at the moment. The camera scanned slowly back and forth, in hypnotic black and white. He'd have a good image of the leaker, the whistleblower, when he scrolled back to May 11, the date the prick had uploaded the STO kill order to the District Attorney's Office.

He then noticed a switch on the side of the monitor: 1-2-3-4.

He clicked the last and the screen divided into quadrants.

Oh, hell...

The store had four cameras. And one was presently recording Swann himself, crouching down in front of the machine. Only his back was being shot but this in itself was still very troubling.

He quickly studied the computer and

was even more troubled to see that dismantling it and stealing the hard drive, as he'd planned, was impossible. The large computer was fixed to the floor with straps of metal and large bolts.

Right, as if somebody would steal a five-year-old piece of crap, with Windows XP as the operating system. He equated a machine like this to a plastic Sears hand mixer, versus what he had: a six-hundred-dollar KitchenAid, with a bread kneading hook and fresh pasta maker.